


Small Prophets

by HarpGuy



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Ancestors, Fluff, Gen, Grubfic, Grubs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-17
Updated: 2013-02-27
Packaged: 2017-11-29 14:47:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/688174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarpGuy/pseuds/HarpGuy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adopting the tiny mutant grub seemed like a good idea at the time, but foolish actions have consequences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It has been a long day for you. Your work in the breeding caverns is always tiring, but today has felt more so than usual. You straighten up and stretch out your stiff back, yawning as you do so; you can’t wait to get back to your respiteblock so you can sleep. The tunnels are silent at last – all of the day’s hatchlings must have been selected by their future lusii. You smile and turn around, beginning the journey through the vast empty caves to your hive. 

Fixated on the thought of your beckoning recuperacoon, it takes you a while to notice the noise. When you do, though, you stop and stare around. A thin whine, it cuts into your brain like an exceptionally irritating knife. You sigh. It must be an overlooked grub, lying unclaimed somewhere nearby. There’s no way you’re going to get any sleep with this noise going on, so you feel you should probably go and try to make it shut up. You’re quite good with grubs, but you don’t have to keep it quiet for long; only until a lusus finds the wretched thing. You sigh and head off in the direction of the noise.

As soon as you look down into the grub’s crater a tight knot forms in your chest. The poor creature has no chance of ever being taken in by a lusus. No chance at all. It’s a normal, healthy grub (unusually small, but not alarmingly so), clinging to a rock and keening loudly, but what catches your eye is the colour of its carapace. It’s red. Bright, bright red. The grub is some sort of mutant. You stare down in stunned surprise at the tiny, pathetic creature as it howls away, shaking from its tail to the tips of its tiny, blunt little horns. You have absolutely no idea what to do with the thing.

As the grub becomes aware of your presence, its whine stops and it looks up, distracted momentarily from its misery. Red-tinted tears drip from its eyes as it stares up at you. You stare down, captivated by just how vulnerable it looks, and you realise that you can’t just leave it there. There’s no way that it would ever survive, and in some way that you can’t quite place you feel that there is something special about this grub. You feel that its survival is somehow important. And besides, it looks so sad and pathetic, tiny face streaked red with tears staring up at you like that. You can’t just leave it there. It would die, and you won’t allow that. 

You pick the grub up and it curls up in your hands, pressing itself against the warmth of your palms. Its carapace is cold and hard against your fingers, but it gradually begins to warm up. The shivering ceases and it slowly begins to purr, the vibrations running through your hands and up your arms. It’s surprisingly loud. You look down in wonder – while you have carried many grubs around, none of them have ever been quite so small and miserable looking. It’s an odd feeling, knowing that you are now responsible for the future of this tiny creature. You’ve never felt very caring really, but there’s a first time for everything.

The biggest problem that you can think of is that of society. You’ve always objected slightly to the way that Alternian society functions, but even you can see that there’s no way that you could just act as a lusus to the grub. Nobody would ever accept that. Whatever happens will be complicated and difficult for both of you, but you feel that you ought to take the little grub back to your hive and make sure that it settles down a little bit and check it for parasites or signs of disease before you make any major decisions.

By the time you get back to your hive, the grub has fallen asleep in your hands, its tiny snores only distinguishable from its earlier purrs by their slightly lower pitch and louder volume. You can’t help cracking a slight smile as you look down at it. It is lying on its back in your hands, a tiny string of drool hanging from the corner of its mouth, snoring uproariously. It looks utterly ridiculous, and you are suddenly much less worried about its health.

You place the tiny creature carefully down on a cushion in the corner of your respiteblock and inspect it carefully. Seeing no signs of any disease you recognise, you exhale in relief and sink slowly to the floor. The grub seems stable, but what are you going to do about it?


	2. Chapter 2

Once you’re sure your new charge isn’t going to die during the day, you slip out of your dress, pad quietly over to your recuperacoon and slide in. You close your eyes and smile as you descend further and further into the warm embrace of the slime, and within moments you are fast asleep.  
A few hours later, you are awakened by a loud and high pitched sound. Brain struggling to process what’s going on, you rise to the surface of your recuperacoon, bursting from the surface like a grey, slimy seamoobeast. You shake your head to clear the sopor from your eyes, droplets spraying from your hair, and stand up, listening out for the sound that disturbed your sleep.   
There it is again! A strangled shrieking noise, cutting into your sleepy head like a knife. You stare groggily around the room, trying to work out where it comes from.   
Oh.  
Shit.  
You’d forgotten all about the grub.  
That’s not a healthy sound at all. You scramble out of your recuperacoon, slime cascading from your body, and rush across the room, wet feet sliding uncontrollably on the hard floor. You scoop up the grub in both hands, and its body convulses as another sneeze bursts from its tiny mouth. As you gently stroke its carapace, the sopor on your fingers coats its body, sinking in through the pores and relaxing the tiny creature a little. Its breathing eases a little, but its body temperature is far too high, even higher than it was the previous night when you picked it up. You’re going to have to do something about that.   
Shivering as the cold air begins to evaporate the slime that still coats your body, you gently place the grub back down on a cushion and slither over to your ablution trap to get clean. The hot water sluices the congealing slime from your body, and you stare down at the green trails spiralling their way to the drain beneath you. The problem of the grub at the far side of your respiteblock is still present though, so you step out of the ablution trap and towel yourself dry as soon as you’re clean.   
Crossing the room, it takes quite a lot of effort to avoid the messy trails of sopor that you’ve left all over the floor. You’ll have to clean that up later. You pick up the grub once again and, sitting down, run your fingers idly through its hair while you try to work out what’s wrong with it. After a while, its eyes open, staring wetly up at you. You smile at the tiny creature and begin to run your thumbs comfortingly around the bases of its nubby horns. Face creasing up into what you think is probably a smile, it begins to purr, vibrations running through its whole body. The sneezing seems to have stopped for now, but you suppose you’d better keep a close eye on it for a few nights at least. Looks like it’ll have to come with you everywhere for a while.  
You can’t keep thinking of it as “it”, though. If you’re going to be looking after this grub, you’ll have to give it a name. And a sign. And, you suppose, a gender.   
Gender seems pretty easy. There’s something undeniably masculine about those eyebrows, so “he” will do perfectly well. Sign is harder, though. You’ll just... leave that for now. It’s not like not having one will make him any more unusual than he is anyway.   
What about a name though? You’ve never been any good at things like this. You’d better have a good hard think.  
***  
How do the bloody lusii even do this? It’s hard!  
***  
Nope, still no idea.  
***  
How about Krosis?   
You quite like the sound of that one.  
Yeah, that’ll do nicely. Krosis it is.


End file.
